His books are varied and diverse, but mostly fall into these categories:
-Twisted science fiction
-Childrens' stories gone very wrong
-Way-way-way-over-the-top horror
-Post-modern literary experiments
His plots are ridiculous but delivered in an emotional, heartfelt, and straightforward manner.
Mellick isn't an author you hear about in casual conversation. He's a treat for those with flexible minds and strong stomachs. I feel privileged to have discovered and devoured his literary canon.
Now I must emphasize: most of his books are way too gross and obscene for the casual reader. Approach this gentleman's work with caution.
Heck, I wouldn't have read most of his books if I wasn't able to read them on my phone's Kindle app. When you're reading on your phone, no one knows your current book is Zombies and S**t. (His book covers are often quite risque, as well.)
I won't even type most of his book titles without asterisks! Wouldn't say them out loud, either. Blame my Mormonism. On that note - was disappointed by his treatment of my people in the otherwise sublime Bio Melt. He conflates Mormons with the fundamentalist polygamous cult offshoot groups. Which is like conflating all Muslims with ISIS. Not cool. I mean- he wrote it brilliantly and his satiric points were solid about the abuse and conformity and such. But I was bummed that he seemed to believe that's what Mormons are. If you're reading this, Mr. Mellick: we're weird, but not that kind of weird.
The following breakdown of his books isn't comprehensive. After reading The Baby Jesus Butt Plug, I decided I would go ahead and skip his other blatant blasphemy books (Electric Jesus Corpse, Satan Burger, etc.) Not my jam, and I also didn't care for Fishyfleshed, which took Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man concept of Jesus actually being a crazy person...and didn't really do much new with it.
Part of that is also that his postmodern literary books are my least favorite. I would have liked his metal-worm-zombie-infection novel Steel Breakfast Era a whole lot more if it had been told in a straightforward style. I like a clear, well-told story, especially when the plot details are as crazy as Mellick's. (Ugly Heaven, Adolf in Wonderland, and Sunset with a Beard are also too pomo for moi.)
Everybody's got an opinion, so take mine with a container of salt. But despite my differences with the author, I've been more impressed by his work than anything I've read in years. And I read a lot. He's an inspiration and a mind-melter.
This list is in order of awesomeness and recommendability.
Clownfellas: Tales of the Bozo Crime Family by Carlton Mellick III
One of the most amazing, creative, and funny books I've ever read. This is a very well-written, fast-paced, entertaining organized crime epic that just happens to be about clowns. You get explosive pies, cotton candy cigarettes, homicidal jugglers on unicycles, guns with bullets that explode into giant pieces of popcorn on impact. And that's just a few of the things you'll find in the first story. And there are six stories in here. All interconnected and building on each other nicely. I was totally blindsided by this book, just shocked senseless at its quality and imagination level. And now I'm over-hyping it to you. Okay. Calm down. Don't get too excited. Temper your expectations, so you can read it and be totally blown away, too!
From the back cover: "A children's book gone horribly wrong." Indeed. The first half is a whimsical (and whimsically-written) story about a nice girl who reaches the end of a rainbow and gets a wish. She wishes for it to rain candy forever, so that all children, rich and poor, can have all the candy they want! Well, it happens. Jawbreakers fly down like bullets and crush skulls and murder and mutilate and disfigure everyone. Candy piles up everywhere, destroying the environment. The lack of rain causes drought and famine, destroying every body of water worldwide as evaporated water never comes back down. Desperate people turn to cannibalism and things get worse and worse. But Mellick gives it a strong emotional core with a surprisingly poignant and resonant ending.
Quicksand House
Short summary (since we need analogies to make sense of reality): a surreal Flowers in the Attic crossed with a survival horror video game. A lot of crazy, twisted details. A boy and his older sister live in a large house and have never seen their parents. They go looking for their parents in this strange house with creatures and danger around every corner. Not too sick. Really a rather haunting fairy tale about children making sense of their world. I think about it often.
The Big Meat
So after you defeat Godzilla... how do you handle the cleanup? That's where this starts, and it's a wonderfully gross adventure as the cleanup crew makes their way through the enormous caverns inside a defeated giant monster, trying to transport and dispose of this biohazard piece by piece. Oh, and people keep stealing parts of the monster to manufacture drugs that are causing mutations. An awfully big adventure.
The Terrible Thing That Happens
A really delightful (and short) reality-bending thriller where a food-less future has a still-standing grocery store where people and food magically appear for a narrow time window each night. Only until a mass shooting takes place there, which closes this tear in reality and traps you there if you don't get out in time. The "terrible thing" of the shooting created such a strong psychic imprint on the place, it keeps repeating, and our future folks have no other way to acquire food or supplies. Lots of other dark, weird surprises along the way. I think about this one often, too.
Every Time We Meet at Dairy Queen, Your Whole F**king Face Explodes
That title alone merits a few moments' consideration. Mellick could have cut several words from it and made the same point. But he made it that long. (And according to his Afterword, the original title for the book was several pages long.) It's a tale of young love where the young girl in the relationship has a face that explodes when she gets too excited. Though the title is misleading- her face explodes everywhere, not just at Dairy Queen.
Zombies and S**t
Easy summary: Hunger Games with punks playing the game and Return of the Living Dead-style brain-eating zombies on the loose in the game arena. One scene made me cringe from supreme disgust and I can't recommend it because of that scene alone (unless you skim it, and you'll see it coming, ewww). But this is better and more epic, funny, and entertaining than any zombie movie, comic, or book from the past couple decades.
Spider Bunny
A creepy children's cereal commercial becomes sentient and tries to suck kids into the screen. For starters. Memorably eerie and funny.
Armadillo Fists
Having read Clownfellas first, this feels like a warm-up for that book. Yes, it's about a woman with armadillos for fists, but it's mostly an organized crime epic. The armadillo-fisted woman is connected to the criminals and after an unfortunate accident, ends up fighting her way through the crime bosses in order of toughness. It's told in a non-linear fashion, which is usually super-annoying, but really works well here. The story peels back its layers like onions and complicates and deepens each character as events unfold. And it ends on a surprisingly tender note.
Punk Land
A brilliant tale of the afterlife for punks. Compelling, funny, with great satire on the punk genre and culture. It's a sequel to Satan Burger, which I broke down and read because I liked this one so much. That one was kinda a stream of consciousness literary mess. Satan runs a fast food restaurant that damns its customers. Not as fun as it sounds. But this one, with its hyper vision of punk afterlife and fun twists and turns and wry music commentary? Worth it.
Ultra F**kers
Deceptive title. It's actually the name of a Japanese punk band, nothing sexual. This book is quite hilarious and insane. It's about an endless suburban neighborhood that seems to be expanding as our characters go through it, unable to find any way out. And it's actually darker and more complex than they can imagine. Great commentary on automation and mechanization of culture.
*
My wrists hurt, and you can figure out what's up with these books on their titles alone and yes, they are all awesome and all deliver on their titles' promises: The Cannibals of Candyland, The Morbidly Obese Ninja, Bio Melt, Tumor Fruit, Crab Town, and I Knocked Up Satan's Daughter. I would put his kids' book about the vampire in this category, but I don't want to even repeat its title.
The following were okay, or blah: Sea of the Patchwork Cats, Cybernetrix, Village of the Mermaids, War Slut, Hungry Bug, Sex and Death in Television Town, Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland, and Barbarian Beast Bitches of the Badlands.
Fantastic Orgy
Okay, this one was actually pretty good, but really all over the place. Same with his other short story collection, Hammer Wives. Some gems, but some head-scratchers, too. Some I'd prefer to see expanded as novels, some I'd prefer not to have read. I don't know that I'd shove either one in your hand and scream, "READ THIS NOW!" The way I would with the books reviewed above.
The Menstruating Mall
Also not exactly bad. Much like The Haunted Vagina, he's coming out of his relentless literary experimentation and trying to tell a more straightforward story here. Much allegory, and most of it works. He was still making his points about the joys of nonconformity too blatantly. He got a lot better at weaving his themes into the work more effortlessly in years to come.
*
FROM HERE DOWN- BEWARE. The following made me cringe and squirm and wish my brain didn't work anymore, but in an entertaining, interesting way.
Cuddly Holocaust
This book broke me in ways I didn't know I could be broken. It's a world of sentient stuffed animals and human-toy hybrids and the terrible, terrible way these things are manufactured. My heart is sinking just thinking about that scene in the factory. I can't.
Apes**t
This is possibly the most disturbing book I ever read. I felt ill and trepidatious almost the entire time. It's basically a cabin-in-the-woods slasher story, but incredibly off-the-wall and gross, with a third-act twist that will churn the most stout stomach. Its sequel, Clusterf**k, was even "better." That one is set in a series of claustrophobic caverns and I found myself genuinely terrified while reading it. Fear of tight spots is potent. Mellick manages real horror in addition to the gross-out stuff.
As She Stabbed Me Gently in the Face
A surprisingly suspenseful relationship thriller about a brutal female serial killer who meets her match in the form of an immortal angel who loves being tortured and mutilated. So much squirm. Even more squirmy than The Handsome Squirm, another super-icky Mellick book I kinda liked but don't want to ever think about again.
The Egg Man
Actually really really good. It's told as a series of smells. Very unusual approach, but it works. But so gross I can't condone it.
These were so gross I didn't really like them: The Tick People, Exercise Bike, Parasite Milk, The Kobold Wizard's Dildo of Enlightment, and Ocean of Lard.
*
Full disclosure: I wish I could write characters half as well as Mr. Mellick. I am deeply jealous of him. No matter how crazy his stories or plot details get, you almost never disengage from his characters. That's a special literary gift, in any genre.
-Phony McFakename
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